Sustainability
The Sustainable Development Goals of PoreXpert Ltd
PoreXpert Ltd has developed novel software and methods to model the voids within porous materials and how gases, liquids and colloidal suspensions behave within them. In so doing, it supports and is committed to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Its current major clients are also aligned to these goals, although such alignment is not a requirement of customers’ use of the PoreXpert software.
Applications include helping energy companies understand and exploit the nature of oil and gas reserves to improve the efficiency of exploration and extraction. While oil and gas exploitation has enabled industrialization and human development, and has provided major employment worldwide, it has also contributed to the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and, in turn, climate change.
The United Nations Development Programme acknowledges the central role the industry plays in the global economy and its role as a driver of economic and development, and its importance in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals – including taking steps to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from its activities.
PoreXpert Ltd supports industry efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Its technology enables companies to identify more accurately where extractable resources are in oil and gas-bearing shales, reducing the amount exploratory drilling needed – and the amount of energy involved in its extraction. For more information on the oil and gas industry, and how it is working with the United Nations Development Programme to achieve the SDGs, please see page 38 of the report from the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA).
The PoreXpert software has also been used to model weight loss in the cores of UK Advanced Gas Cooled nuclear Reactors (AGRs), which have been generating around 20% of the national energy requirement without the emission of greenhouse gases. All the reactors are at or near the end of their operational life, and the findings of PoreXpert have been incorporated into other software used by EDF Energy to predict the extent of weight loss in reactors’ active graphite cores to provide one of the limits at which each reactor should cease to operate. Thus PoreXpert has contributed to maximizing the continuing contributions of the UK’s existing sustainable electricity generation.
PoreXpert is a also a tool to assist the activities of many other companies. For example it is currently being used to optimize fuel cells that are significant components of green energy production, and has previously been used for applications as diverse as optimizing paper coatings for printing, and sealing F1 racing car engine blocks. PoreXpert has helped improve existing products or produce new, energy efficient products, and as such it fully aligns with the UN’s goal of Responsible Consumption and Production.
Goals
SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy – ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
7.3 By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency (supports the oil and gas industry to find and extract resources more efficiently; supports nuclear power station maintenance)
SD 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
12.2 By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources (improves the performance of existing microporous products, and helps develop more efficient new products).
SDG 13: Climate action – take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaption, impact reduction and early warning (helping the oil industry mitigate its impact on climate change, improves its institutional capacity).